7) If you’re reading this, Doc Brown was unable to make lightning strike the clock tower, and I’m stuck in 1985. I won’t be able to respond to emails or voicemail until 9ish on mm/dd, or until email is invented — whatever comes first.
Amanda works at HubSpot, and she came with a unique auto respondent that asked her contacts to guess where she is. To give background, she flew down to Boston to attend a Red Sox training game in the spring with her father. She chose to ask her contacts whether where they think she might be, and also this played some wonderful use of litotes here:
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Just say you’re away from your desk! Or if you’re out for more than a day, just say you’re “away” until XYZ date.
I pretty much never pay attention to out of office replies, just note if there is one. If I really need something urgently I’ll look to see if there’s another person’s contact info, but it’s rarely that urgent. I might also look for a return date, if that matters to me. It would annoy me if I had to wade through a wall of text to find either of those things.
Both your customers and your employees need to know how long your business will be shut down for the holidays. Provide notice well in advance. Depending on the types of services you offer, you may need to start notifying customers as early as a month out. It would be best if you were to provide these important notifications at least two weeks before the holiday shutdown. Employees should also be reminded regularly that the company will not be open during those important days.
Hey — you’ve reached my inbox, but hold on, the doorbell just rang. It’s the UPS driver. He’s loading me onto the truck. Dang, it’s stuffy in this truck with all these boxes. He’s taking me down to… Oh! Florida! And now I’m on the beach. Thanks, UPS driver!
Yes! I would roll my eyes *a*lot* at that message – it comes across as someone taking themselves way too seriously.
Happy holidays! I am currently getting into the holiday spirit, and so is the rest of the office. I'll be sure to respond to your email when I return to work on Dec. 28, 2020. Thank you for your patience, and I hope you and your loved ones have a joyous holiday. All the best, Lennox Haven Marketing Director
I’ll be out of the office from 07.07. until 16.07.2020 with no access to my mailbox. Please contact (COLLEAGUE NAME), [email protected].
I am in [COUNTRY] [DATE] to [DATE] so email replies may be tardy due to the curvature of the earth and the sun. Thank you.
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Also, IMO, it’s putting the burden of knowing and managing your schedule on the other person. You expect them to be paying enough attention to you to remember when you come back and to resend their request. That’s not reasonable.
I don’t usually read the messages anyway, I just take it as information that the recipient won’t see my message right away. If that will cause issues, I’ll contact someone else.
So, take a lesson from @courtwhip, editor at PEDESTRIAN.TV, who wrote the above hilarious out-of-office email, fully stocked with mentions of the best movies from the 1990s. (By the way, “Splinter” is from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and as we all know, he loves pizza.)
I mean, this is what I pretty much did upon returning from my maternity leaves but I would never put it into an email! My maternity leave OOO was the vague “I am on extended leave and am not anticipated to return until X. Please contact Joe or Fergus in my absence.” X being a vague time-frame based on my due date and the length of my leave. No one is waiting 3+ months for an answer so I did get to delete most of the 500 emails I got during my most recent leave! I did once have someone internal tell me I should say maternity leave rather than leave, but really, what does it matter? I’m gone for a few months and no one outside of the company really NEEDS to know why.
2.) Bienvenue chez John Doe. En raison de notre entreprise de vacances, notre personnel de service sera à nouveau disponible pour vous le lundi 4/07/2016. L’expédition des commandes démarrera de nouveau le 01/11/2016. En attendant vous êtes le bienvenu pour envoyer votre demande à notre email [email protected] ou avec notre formulaire de contact. Merci !
I thought it was funny but could never get away with using something like that at my org. I loved the “competent people who work for me” part – I make this joke all the time. We have some people who feel that they should have a manager personally attend to them and, at least in my case, my highly competent team is in the weeds of that work a lot more and are not rusty (like I am).